turned her head and flung
a command in native across two open rooms to the outstanding kitchen. A
few minutes later a barefooted native girl padded in and shook her head.

Lavina's disappointment was evident.

"You're stopping aboard the _Kittiwake_, aren't you?" she said. "I'll
tell him you called."

"Then it is a _he?_" Grief queried.

Lavina nodded.

"I hope you can do something for him, Captain Grief. I'm only a
good-natured woman. I don't know. But he's a likable man, and he may be
telling the truth; I don't know. You'll know. You're not a soft-hearted
fool like me. Can't I mix you a cocktail?"

III

Back on board his schooner and dozing in a deck chair under a
three-months-old magazine, David Grief was aroused by a sobbing,
slubbering noise from overside. He opened his eyes. From the Chilian
cruiser, a quarter of a mile away, came the stroke of eight bells. It
was midnight. From overside came a splash and another slubbering noise.
To him it seemed half amphibian, half the sounds of a man crying to
himself and querulously chanting his sorrows to the general universe.

A jump took David Grief to the low rail. Beneath, centred about the
slubbering noise, was an area of agitated phosphorescence. Leaning over,
he locked his hand under the armpit of a man, and, with pull and heave
and quick-changing grips, he drew on deck the naked form of Aloysius
Pankburn.

"I didn't have a sou-markee," he complained. "I had to swim it, and I
couldn't find your gangway. It was very miserable. Pardon me. If you
have a towel to put about my middle, and a good stiff drink, I'll be
more myself. I'm Mr. Folly, and you're the Captain Grief, I presume,
who called on me when I was out. No, I'm not drunk. Nor am I cold. This
isn't shivering. Lavina allowed me only two drinks to-day. I'm on the
edge of the horrors, that's all, and I was beginning to see things
when I couldn't find the gangway. If you'll take me below I'll be very
grateful. You are the only one that answered my advertisement."

He was shaking pitiably in the warm night, and down in the cabin, before
he got his towel, Grief saw to it that a half-tumbler of whiskey was in
his hand.

"Now fire ahead," Grief said, when he had got his guest into a shirt
and a pair of duck trousers. "What's this advertisement of yours? I'm
listening."

Pankburn looked at the whiskey bottle, but Grief shook his head.

"All right, Captain, though I tell you on whatever is left of